Visual Laterality of Calf–Mother Interactions in Wild Whales

Behavioral laterality is known for a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate animals. Laterality in social interactions has been described for a wide range of species including humans. Although evidence and theoretical predictions indicate that in social species the degree of population level laterality is greater than in solitary ones, the origin of these unilateral biases is not fully understood. It is especially poorly studied in the wild animals. Little is known about the role, which laterality in social interactions plays in natural populations. A number of brain characteristics make cetaceans most suitable for investigation of lateralization in social contacts.) in the greatest breeding aggregation in the White Sea. Here we show that young calves (in 29 individually identified and in over a hundred of individually not recognized mother-calf pairs) swim and rest significantly longer on a mother's right side. Further observations along with the data from other cetaceans indicate that found laterality is a result of the calves' preference to observe their mothers with the left eye, i.e., to analyze the information on a socially significant object in the right brain hemisphere.Data from our and previous work on cetacean laterality suggest that basic brain lateralizations are expressed in the same way in cetaceans and other vertebrates. While the information on social partners and novel objects is analyzed in the right brain hemisphere, the control of feeding behavior is performed by the left brain hemisphere. Continuous unilateral visual contacts of calves to mothers with the left eye may influence social development of the young by activation of the contralateral (right) brain hemisphere, indicating a possible mechanism on how behavioral lateralization may influence species life and welfare. This hypothesis is supported by evidence from other vertebrates

Automation of Algorithmic Tasks for Virtual Laboratories Based on Automata Theory

In the work a description of an automata model of standard algorithm for constructing a correct solution of algorithmic tests is given. The described model allows a formal determination of the variant complexity of algorithmic test and serves as a basis for determining the complexity functions, including the collision concept – the situation of uncertainty, when a choice must be made upon fulfilling the task between the alternatives with various priorities. The influence of collisions on the automata model and its inner structure is described. The model and complexity functions are applied for virtual laboratories upon designing the algorithms of constructing variant with a predetermined complexity in real time and algorithms of the estimation procedures of students’ solution with respect to collisions. The results of the work are applied to the development of virtual laboratories, which are used in the practical part of massive online course on graph theory